Stephanie Mittman

by A Heart Full of Miracles

  “Does it matter what I want for you?” she asked, unshed tears glistening in her eyes.

  “This is for me, Abby, believe me,” he said. “It’s always been about what I want, and I’m ashamed and embarrassed to say that it still is. Do this one last thing for me, Abby. Be mine.”

  And then he opened his arms and she nestled against him, fitting her soft body against his, letting her sobs be muffled by his rumpled suit. “I’ve always been yours,” she said, her words muffled by tweed and closeness and his own sigh.

  “That’s my girl,” he said, pulling a hankie from his back pocket and holding it to her nose. “Now blow.”

  She did as she was told, and then lifted the biggest, loveliest hazel eyes to him. “I can’t give you much,” she said, “and I would have spared you the end, but I want every moment I can have with you.”

  “I’ll work on it,” he said, and nodding at Ephraim, he took her arm so that he could see her home.

  Seth saw her to her door and stood there beneath the porch light, all flesh and blood and real, and despite the pain in her head and the worries in her heart, she reveled in the sight of him.

  “I’d like to kiss you,” he said, asking permission for what he’d stolen long before.

  “I won’t break,” she assured him, and was swept up into his arms and pressed so tightly against his chest that she began to doubt her own words.

  He kissed her, tenderly at first, gently, as if he didn’t quite believe that he wouldn’t hurt her, and then the kiss deepened, sharpened, turned to something possessive and defiant, as if his very lips, his breath, his love, could keep her alive.

  And God help her, she believed him. She kissed him back as if nothing would ever part them, and she pressed herself against him, molding her body to his.

  “We’d best get you inside,” he murmured against her neck. “I think it may be cold out here.”

  “Is it?” she asked, feeling only warmth, his warmth, spreading through her, warming places that had been cold since the day she’d told him that she couldn’t marry him.

  “I can’t believe I fell for that Armand business,” he said, his hand drifting down her back and cupping her bottom so that she could feel his hardness against her belly despite her layers of skirts.

  “I’m a very good actress,” she said, leaning her head back to let him kiss her throat, and gasping as his lips went lower still.

  “Are you acting now?” His words drifted up to her. Of course she was acting. She was playing the part of a newlywed with her whole life in front of her.

  “Seth?” It was Anna Lisa’s voice, and suddenly Abby and Seth were bathed in light from the open front door. “Are you certain she can do that?”

  “She can very well,” he said, releasing her and guiding her into the living room where all of the Mergansers stood gawking at him. “But I suppose she shouldn’t.”

  “Sir. Mrs. Merganser,” he said with a nod to her father and mother. “Jed, how goes the flying machine?”

  Jed’s face lit up, and he said, “It’ll fly. I know it will. Of course, some people around here don’t believe in miracles, so …”

  “God’s miracles and man’s … well, man doesn’t make miracles,” her father said.

  “Well, sir, I’d like to see if maybe someone can,” Seth said.

  It would take a miracle, Abby knew, and she only hoped that Seth could make it happen.

  “For Abidance?” her father asked.

  “Don’t you have something you want to ask my father?” Abby asked, looking at him as innocently as she could manage considering that she could think of little but the way he had kissed her and pressed himself against her, and how, if they really were to marry tonight they could—

  Seth cleared his throat. “Seeing how Armand Whitiny has jilted Abidance here,” he said with a knowing look that made Armand Whiting cough behind his hand, “I’d like to offer for her hand.”

  “Don’t you want the rest of her?” Jed asked, and Abby loved the low chuckle that came from Seth’s chest.

  “You want to marry Abidance?” her father asked. “I guess with all that kissing on the porch she didn’t have time to tell you—”

  “He knows, Papa.”

  “And you still want to—”

  “Tonight. As soon as she’s ready,” Seth said, taking her hand in his and kissing her knuckles before guiding her to the sofa.

  “I don’t need to—” she started.

  “Save your strength,” he said solicitously, whispering in her ear as he helped her sit, “for later.”

  “I don’t know if this is such a good idea,” her mother said. “Abby isn’t really up to—”

  “Best damn idea I’ve heard in a month of Sundays,” her father said, daring anyone to contradict him or call him on his choice of words. “Jed, you go tell Ansel and Emily to meet us at the church. Mother, you see if there’s something sweet you can whip up in a hurry. Patience, you go tell Mrs. Stella we’ll need her at the organ, and tell them over at the Grand that they’ll need a room. Prudence, you get your sister ready, and I’ll just stick close to the groom here and make sure he doesn’t leave town … again!”

  “It was your daughter …” Seth was saying as they left the house and he sent her a plaintive backward glance while her father railed on.

  “Can’t,” Bartlett said. “Don’t you think I wish I could?”

  “And if there is no operation?” Reverend Merganser asked as the three men sat around Seth’s desk and Ephraim asked them to share what was left of the scotch.

  “She’ll die,” Bartlett said matter-of-factly. “In all likelihood she’d die from the operation anyway.”

  “So you’re saying that there’s really no difference,” the reverend said, eyeing the scotch as if he could taste it across the table.

  “Oh, there’s a difference, all right,” Bartlett said. His speech was slightly slurred, but his facts were textbook perfect. “If she dies on the table she leaves the way we all knew her—brave, full of life, whole. She’ll have more time if we let the tumor grow, but she’ll lose more of herself every day—the forgetfulness we’ve all noticed will extend to you,” he said, pointing at the reverend. “And you,” he added, pointing at Seth.

  “She’ll forget the most basic of things, lose control over her bowels and bladder and—”

  “You have to do it,” Seth said. “Now when there’s still a chance.”

  “She doesn’t have a chance with me,” Ephraim said. “I couldn’t even kill her right with these hands.”

  “Then you have to do it,” the reverend said, looking right at Seth as if he were the Messiah himself. “You’re a doctor. You love her. You can save her.”

  It was the stupidest, most ridiculous, horrifying thing he’d heard since Anna Lisa had told him that Abby was dying. “I’m not a brain surgeon. I’ve never taken out more than an appendix, done more than a caesarean section, or lanced a boil. I don’t have the training, the skill, the knowledge….”

  “He could tell you,” the reverend said gesturing toward Ephraim with his head. “You could be his hands.”

  “You’re crazy! I could kill her. Do you understand that?” Seth shouted at him. “My wife, my life, and I could kill her with one tiny mistake.”

  After what seemed like forever, the reverend spoke in a small voice, as if he were giving away a confidence. “She got lost on the way to the kitchen this morning. Stood there in the hall with tears in her eyes waiting for someone to help her. You gotta be that help.”

  “From her pain and from my examination, I’d say unequivocally that the tumor is in an operable location,” Ephraim said. “We’ve got that much going for us.”

  “That much isn’t enough when it comes to Abby,” Seth said. No guarantee could be enough. A slight chance was hardly good enough to—

  “Everything indicates that it’s prefrontal. The best location. She’s young—that’s in her favor.”

  “You’re asking me to kill her, M
erganser—you know that’s what you’re really asking.”

  “You ever put a horse down, or a dog?”

  “What?”

  “Hurts you, but it don’t hurt the horse or the dog. They go on to a better place without pain and suffering and sadness.”

  “I can’t have this discussion,” Seth said, barely able to breathe. Comparing Abby to some helpless creature turned his stomach, made the bile rise in his throat. “This is my wife we’re talking about.”

  “Not yet,” the reverend said, crossing his arms over his chest and licking his lips as if just one glass of scotch was all he needed.

  “What’s that supposed to mean? That you’ll oppose the marriage unless I agree to operate on my own wife and risk her life?”

  “Her life’s already at risk,” Bartlett said. “It would be more like you were risking her death.”

  “I would be risking her death,” Seth said. “I can’t do that. I couldn’t live with myself if—”

  “Dr. Hendon,” the reverend said, “I never did care for you all that much, but my Abidance thinks the sun rises at your say-so, so I’ll remind you that this isn’t about you, it’s about her. She’d feel safe in your hands. You know that.”

  Abby would trust him. She would lie beneath the knife in his hand and tell him to do what he had to do.

  “Do you remember when I told you about how there was no place to operate safely in Eden’s Grove?” Seth demanded. “Did I not warn you that we could all be sorry if I had to do a surgery here?” He swept his arm to encompass the room with its debris, its years of germs.

  “The church,” the reverend said. “It’s spotless for the Easter service.”

  “It’s got lots of windows,” Bartlett said positively, as if all that were left to discuss were the details.

  “You’re both crazy. I don’t know how to remove a brain tumor, and if I did, I’d be the last appropriate doctor for Abidance. I’d be too—”

  “Involved?” Bartlett asked.

  “Choked up?” the reverend said.

  “Could I do it?” Seth asked Bartlett. “I mean really, man-to-man. Would she have even a chance of surviving?”

  “A small chance,” Bartlett said softly.

  “And of being herself again? Of having her mind intact?”

  “Smaller still.”

  “I can’t do it,” he said, the little he’d managed to eat on the train rising up in his throat. “I couldn’t—” he started, before losing his dinner in the wastebasket beside his desk.

  “And the chances of her getting better if he don’t do it?” the reverend asked the doctor when Seth had finished retching.

  “None.”

  “And of her knowing us, saying good-bye to us and all at the end—if he don’t pull himself together and operate?”

  Bartlett shook his head. “None,” he said again.

  “But if I operate on her, there’s a good chance that she could die,” Seth said. And then, just as if she were there, he heard her say that he’d gotten it wrong again. That it should be She could die, but if I operate on her, at least she’s got a chance.

  THE GRANGE HALL WAS FILLED WITH CANDLES. Abby didn’t know how they’d gotten there, nor how the chairs had come to be filled or how the flowers for her to carry had come to be waiting on the bench beside the door. It seemed like a dream, a miracle.

  And at the front of the hall, waiting for her was the greatest miracle of all—Seth. Dressed in a dark suit that he had apparently borrowed from someone just a little shorter than he, he came with a smile on his lips, to take her arm and lead her down the aisle.

  “Thank you,” he said softly as he placed her hand in the crook of his arm.

  “For what?” she whispered as the wedding march rang out from the old organ that had been pulled from the fire, a little the worse for wear, some of the notes missing, though Abby didn’t care.

  “For marrying me,” he said simply, as if she should have known. “For loving me,” he added, squeezing the hand that rested on his arm with his other hand.

  She’d taken a good deal of the medicine that Dr. Bartlett had given her to dull the pain that never left her head, and it had left her a little woozy and unsteady on her feet. Maybe it was the drugs that made the music sound so perfect. Maybe it was the candles that made Seth’s face so incredibly handsome. Maybe it was just something a mother said to all her daughters that made her feel like the most beautiful bride.

  And maybe it was love.

  “Dearly beloved,” her father said when she and Seth were finally standing in front of him. “It is late and nearly the saddest day of the year, since it’s just about Good Friday, and the truth is that Maundy Thursday’s no cause for hallelujah either, but wedging this ceremony in sort of between the two, well, I guess the Lord couldn’t have been too happy back then, but I know he’s happy now.

  “That said, I won’t say anything else,” her father said.

  “We are gathered here to witness the coming together of the flower of the flock, my sweetest, smartest—”

  There was a slight gasp from the first row and Abby tried to keep the smirk off her face.

  “Now, come on, Patience, everyone knows that Abidance could mop up the floor with you in any argument you two have had since you was old enough to talk. And since she never did, that just proves my point about her being the sweetest, don’t it?

  “So as I was saying, we are gathered here to witness the coming together of my sweetest, smartest daughter, Abidance Faith Merganser and the doctor who delivered a good lot of you and treated the rest of us. And actually cured a whole bunch of us, from time to time.” Her father winked at Seth, and he nodded back, but the smile left his face.

  Her father rambled on some more, in the way that only her father could, and that his congregation had come to love, or at least tolerate.

  Finally he got to the I-do’s, which it seemed to Abby, who was more than ready, took forever.

  “Do you, Seth Henry Hendon, take this woman, Abidance Faith Merganser, to be your lawfully wedded wife, to cherish her, honor her, obey her, and hold yourself only unto her through sickness and health, for richer for poorer, until death do you part?”

  Seth said nothing at first, just looked down at her through eyes so heavy with tears that it took all she had not to look away. Her hands in his, he softly said, “Even death won’t part us.”

  “Well, I guess I can take that as an I do,” her father said.

  “And I promise never to leave you,” she said, not caring how the real words went, not believing they could have more meaning for her and Seth than the vows of their hearts.

  “Don’t go putting the horse before the cart,” her father said. “You have the ring?”

  Ansel took a step up and handed the ring to Seth, who took the fine gold band with intricate markings on it and slipped it back on Abby’s finger. “My mother loved flowers,” he said, as if they were the only two people in the hall, as if whether she liked it mattered.

  “It’s perfect,” she said, putting out her hand and smiling through tears as the candlelight gleamed off it.

  “With this ring,” he said without prompting, “I thee wed, and endow thee with all I possess, including any skill I might have.”

  It was an odd thing to add, but she knew he would explain it to her later, and she would know it had been just the right thing with which to bind her to him.

  And he took her into his arms and kissed her, and people were cheering and crying and her father was shouting that he could kiss the bride. And could he ever!

  “You were supposed to come to my wedding,” Anna Lisa said, coming up to hug her along with her sisters and her mother. “And you went and did it first!”

  As she was passed around for hugs and kisses, she could see Seth talking with Dr. Bartlett and her father. Several other men and some of the women seemed to join the group, and heads nodded and hands were shaken. After a short time she felt breathless and Emily came to her rescue, saying
that she herself needed to sit, and suggesting that Abby keep her company.

  “What are they planning?” Abby asked her.

  “I heard them talking about the church,” Emily said. “Maybe your father is getting Seth to agree to marry you again in the new church on Easter!”

  “I’ll worry about Sunday on Sunday,” Abby said as Seth came to claim her.

  “You be careful of my little girl,” Abby’s mother warned Seth, shaking a fist at him. “You take your time and you be gentle, or she won’t be the only one complaining of a headache.”

  “Mother!” Abby said, knowing her cheeks were flaming.

  “Maybe you shouldn’t—”

  “Mother!”

  “I’ll take good care of her, Clarice,” Seth said.

  “Well, she’s not all that well and I think—”

  “He’s a doctor!” Abby said with a humph, a chorus behind her echoing the same words.

  “He knows what’s best.”

  “He’ll take care of your little girl.”

  “Mother, you are embarrassing her to death!”

  That last comment caused a momentary silence, which was lightened when Patience asked Abby to take good care of the dress because she wanted to wear it next.

  It took forever to get Abby out of the grange hall, and, once they got to the hotel, even longer to unfasten the row of buttons that went down the back of her dress. Seth supposed that it was a good thing he had to take his time so that he could get hold of himself and remember Abby was frail and not up to what he wished he could do.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked her after he’d managed the last button and before he slipped the sleeves down her arms.

  “Like a bride,” she said, with a little nervous titter that hardly suited his Abby. He supposed, considering, he was lucky she was herself at all.

  “Well, let’s get you out of this,” he said with a sigh, trying to tamp down lusty feelings that he didn’t dare act upon.

  She let him undress her, her eyes never straying from his, hopeful, warm, expectant. On the bench at the foot of the bed lay a nightgown that he suspected had been her mother’s, or Pru’s from some other wedding night. When he had her down to her chemise and stockings, he reached for the gown.